Oh what was I thinking? No more TV? Ack.

“Well, you know, if you really want to have more free time we can just get rid of the TV.” Even as my mouth was forming the words my brain was freaking out. Not the TV! Not the precious precious TV! M looked skeptical at first, but slowly, slowly he started to nod his head. My heart sank; even though I had a hunch he’d agree with me, I was hoping that he’d be horrified and refuse point blank.

I may have mentioned a few times in the past that I have quite the TV addiction. I’m actually incapable of sitting on the couch without reaching for the remote. I’ve tried. It hurts. No joke. I’ll watch anything; reruns, bad movies, reality TV. I just don’t like to sit in a quiet room.

Recently however I’ve been frustrated with my TV addiction. I know that it’s stealing all my free time. I write with the TV on, I don’t actively watch, but it’s on and I find my attention drifting from the computer to the TV and back again, and in the end it takes me twice as long to write what I’m composing. If I could just shut it off and concentrate I’d write better and faster. I know this, and still I turn on the tube and let myself get drawn in. I used to be able to multi-task better, but sleep deprivation is robbing me of that skill.

So for a few weeks I’ve been toying with the idea of going cold turkey. No more TV. We can watch our favorite shows online if we really miss them and we can rent movies for ourselves and for the girls. C might be upset at first, she does love her morning TV, but I think she’d be fine after a couple days. M and I might actually talk to each other over dinner instead of zoning out over sitcoms. Call me crazy, but I really don’t think that we would really miss the TV.

See? See? I can talk the talk, but I can’t walk the walk. I know the TV is baaaad, but I just. can’t. turn. it. off. And if we do cancel the cable and go for the black out M is going to have to make the call, because I just don’t trust myself to be in charge of that. Knowing me, I’ll probably lose control and ask the rep for even more channels instead.

We have been tv-less for almost a year. It was hard at first, especially on our middle child who was watching King Kong On Demand almost daily (that or Narnia). The house is quieter (our tv was on from wake -up until bed time whether anyone was watching it or not). We now have NetFlix and it is nice. I don’t miss the tv at all. We aren’t “living” by the tv schedule of must watch shows. Good luck with it.

I have a horrible TV addiction, as well. I grew up with having no limits to how much TV I watched. My dad even put cable in ALL the rooms at home. The best I can do at our house is only have cable in the family room and the master bedroom – but that really only limits how much TV the kids watch, not me. I commend you for going cold turkey!! I don’t think I could do it.

Check out this video in which Clay Shirky talks about his theory of cognitive surplus, how TV steals our free time, and how new media like blogging is helping us take it back. I found it fascinating. It’s only about 15 minutes.

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